BLOG Motorola to get back on track?

24 February 2009

With fresh rumours of a five-megapixel touch-screen device, Reviews Editor Danny Brogan asks could 2009 be the year that Motorola reinvents itself?

We loved the Motorola RAZR range. With its thintastic clamshell design, everybody from your fame hungry celebrity to your fashion conscious teen wanted one. Then came the equally popular MOTORIZR Z8 that revolutionised the mobile world with its ability to play a full blockbuster movie on board the device (it came bundled with The Bourne Identity on a microSD card). Then there was........Erm.......Well that's just it, nothing springs to mind.

Sure, there's been the odd flicker in Moto's furnace, the MOTO Z10 for example was big on video, both viewing and recording, but it failed to excite the consumers. Likewise, the Motorola ROKR E8 and U9 while capable music phones, couldn't compete with the other more superior music phones that the other manufacturers were producing.

More recently, the Motorola AURA (notably the main handset Motorola were flagging up at MWC), while it's innovative swivel design with clock watch interface made us somewhat swoon, the extremely high price tag (we're talking in excess of £1,000) suggests that they are targeting a specific niche market rather than catering for the masses.

However, as we told you yesterday, photos have been leaked of a new Motorola handset that is rumoured to operate on a full touch-screen, house a five-megapixel camera complete with Xenon flash and TV out and possibly, just possibly, running on the Google Android platform.

Now we've been in the business long enough to not believe every whisper or murmur of a new handset we hear, but for Motorola's sake, we hope this is one rumour that comes to light.